its a problem alright, some tracks do take a few listens to understand and then they are great fun once you fully appreciate whats going on. i find that with bjork. you just have to have time to spend listening to tracks. with most peoples daily commute in the cities this might be possible on a wider scale. then again most people couldnt be bothered, could they?

I think it all boils down to the person the mix is made for. If that person is someone you are trying to convert to say rock from her usual cheesy pop, then it's gonna be tough. But I've always found a certain medium exists on which you make certain mix cds for certain people. I make alot of mix cd's, trying to spread all great music. But I'm careful of the tunes I put on each collection. So I think it is down to the listener and of course if the maker of the mix knows whats good and whats not.

Well, when she got the tape and listened to it, she called me and said she couldnt believe what she was missing. Pearl Jam are now her favourite band, and I've managed to get her into Led Zepp, Girls Against Boys, Mexican Pets...the list is endless. She got rid of her Savage garden crap and now wont listen to anything but rock.

Simple solution to the problem of selective listening and one I plan to do eventually if I ever get round to it. Instead of creating a CD with a lot of individual tracks, exercise those DJ skills and create a PROPER mix CD where the tracks are actually mixed together. Get a set of turntables or CD players with a mixer, or easier still some software like Abelton Live and mix the tracks creating one continuous mix. Beatmatching is a pain to learn, but anyone with an ear will get the hang of it eventually and software makes it even easier. Save it all as an audio file (wav or MP3 or whatever) and then burn it to CD-R as one continuous track. It is kind of a conceit in a way because it pretty much forces the listener to listen to the entire thing, but I've had people make CDs like that for me before and downloaded some really good mixes off the internet (we're not just talking dance music here, you can mix almost anything with similar tempos, except maybe The Shaggs or something ). A good mix can be far more creative and entertaining than a load of individual tracks. It can even change the context in which you listen to a track.

Does that not detract from the essence of what you're trying to get across to the listener you're making the recording for? Surely you should allow each band/artist to stand alone for the full benefit of what you're trying to get them into.

Nope, quite the opposite. As pointed out earlier a lot of people might never listen to a track again if they didn't like it the first time. Do a good mix and you can use the "momentum" built up from one track to carry your listener into the next. You hook your listener into listening to the whole mix. By dropping a track at a certain point in the mix you can put in a context for the listener that makes it easier for them to "get it". Sometimes just an intro can put people off an otherwise great track, good mixing shows a track in its best light. If they end up liking the track and want to hear the whole thing, they can always do the decent thing and track down that record.

Fair enough.

I make mix cds for people all the time and usually if they get stuck on one song I'm ok with that, as long as they found something to like about the mix I made. Sometimes though if I was hoping they'd like something else on the mix it can be frustrating, but usually not. I myself obsess over songs and will play certain songs on repeat for an hour at a time. Songs I've done this with include: "Simple Formality" by Komeda "In My Time of Need" by Opeth "These Days" by Jackson Browne "Dark Side of the Road" by James Carr "Bright Side of the Road" by Van Morrison "If Only" by Queens of the Stone Age "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" by Coldplay "Dead Disco" by Metric "In Your Eyes" by Alison Krauss "Making Pies" by Patty Griffin "Clean" by Players Club "Crumble" by Book of Knots "Let it Fall" by Sean Watkins "Down Through" by Red House Painters "Martin Eden" by Twilight Singers "Blood From Zion" by High on Fire "House of Suffering" by Bad Brains "Carry" by Isis "Wish You Were Mine" by Bottom "Evening Streeted" by Mammoth Volume Probably make an interesting mix, anyone want a copy? :)